Welcome!

Before reading any of the "reviews", you should read the intro, the FAQ, the MOVIES I HAVE ALREADY SEEN list, and if you want, the glossary of genre terms and "What is Horror?", which explains some of the "that's not horror!" entries. There is also a handy recommendation thread that you can use to post suggestions for movies. And to keep things clean, all off topic posts are re-dated to be in JANUARY 2007 (which was before I began doing this little project) once they have 'expired' (i.e. are 10 days old).

Due to many people commenting "I have to see this movie!" after a review, I have decided to add Amazon links within the reviews (they are located at the bottom), as well as a few links to the Horror Movie A Day Store around the page, hopefully non-obstructively. Amazon will also automatically link things they find relevant, so there might be a few random links in a review as well. If they become annoying, I'll remove the functionality. Right now I'm just kind of amused what they come up with (for example, they highlighted 'a horror movie' in the middle of one review and it links to, of all things, the 50 Chilling Movies Budget Pack!!!).

Last but not least, some reviews contain spoilers (NOTE - With a few exceptions, anything written on the back of the DVD or that occurs less than halfway through the movie I do NOT consider a spoiler). I will be adding 'spoiler alerts' for these reviews as I go through and re-do the older reviews (longtime readers may notice that there is now a 'show more' which cleaned up the main page, as well as listing the source of the movie I watched, i.e. Theaters, DVD, TV) to reflect the new format. This is time consuming, so bear with me.

Thanks for coming by and be sure to leave comments, play nice, and as always, watch Cathy's Curse.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Kuroneko (1968)

JANUARY 28, 2012

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (ONLINE RENTAL)

The most common misconception about Criterion releases is that they are supposed to be the "best" movies of all time, which people continue to claim despite the fact that neither Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, or Dr. Giggles have been given the treatment. No, Criterion releases films that are significant in their genre or the whole of filmmaking, which is why Armageddon is part of the collection: name a better example of "dumb, big, and loud" summer blockbuster movie-making. So I was excited for Kuroneko (translated to The Black Cat), because I don't see too many Asian horror films from before the 90s, and with Criterion behind it I figured it would be quite memorable and exciting.

Well, I can only guess that at the time it was pretty amazing. It's not a bad movie by any means, but it's not particularly involving, either. There are potentially exciting plot points in the film, but everything is drawn out and under-developed, as if it was a campfire tale of sorts that got stretched out to feature length without much further development of the story.

The basic plot is this: a woman and her daughter-in-law are raped and killed by a traveling group of Samurai in the opening sequence, and then some time later their ghosts are seen killing any Samurai that crosses their path. So it's sort of like a rape-revenge tale but without specific victims. I couldn't even tell if the guys they kill were part of the original group, but since they have vowed to take down ALL Samurai, it doesn't really matter to the movie's plot. I (the viewer), however, DO have a problem with this - it instantly turns the victims into villains. At least if they were seeking revenge on their specific attackers it would work, even at the eventual point where the line between victim and attacker becomes a bit blurred (a staple in these sort of things). Here that line is crossed pretty much in the 2nd scene - for all we know these Samurai were perfectly decent men. At least Paul Kersey was still taking on thugs and lowlifes if not necessarily the ones who killed his wife, you know?

Plus it drove me nuts that the movie hinges on our hero (who isn't even introduced until the movie's nearly half over) not recognizing his own mother or wife. He sees the resemblance, but it's not until he's banging the wife that it finally sinks in. And he fails to recognize his mother not once but TWICE during the movie's narrative. Once he understands that it's them, certain plot points result in his mother turning against him, and near the end of the film she shows up saying that she's a witch of some sort. Her face isn't that much different, but he again doesn't realize that it's his mom until a particular defect on her person is revealed. Come on, man! Or at least, come on, makeup man! Make her look different enough to fool the audience as well.

That said, I do dig the basic idea of a guy being ordered to investigate/kill the "monster" that's been killing his brethren only to discover it's the ghosts of his mother and his wife. Because of their code of honor and all that, it's not a simple "I can't do it, I know them" type situation - he is sworn to kill them. Additionally, they themselves are sworn to kill HIM, as he is a Samurai and they have vowed to take them all down. LAYERS, man. But again, this stuff is so drawn out, and partially based on our acceptance that a guy can't recognize his own family (even when their cat shows up he's like "Ah, I had a cat that looked like that with my wife who looked exactly like you. Weird!"), that it never felt as compelling as it should. The passage of time was also an issue; years go by in between their murder and the appearance of their ghosts, but we only discover that later.

Beautiful looking film, however. The scope widescreen image mixed with true black & white photography just looks gorgeous, and director Kaneto Shindô finds a lot of wonderfully striking shots: snow fall on the forest setting, the long opening shot of our band of evil Samurai making their way through the woods (and their matter of fact exit later), and others all made me glad I was watching this on Blu-ray. The bits of violence were also surprisingly graphic for their day, with the ghosts tearing at the victims' jugulars. The story may have been a bit too loose for my liking, but I never felt the need to take my eyes off the screen, either.

As this was a rental I cannot judge the merit of the booklet that comes along with the retail version, which has essays and the like that would probably help me understand its significance a little bit better. On the disc we get an interview with Tadao Sato, a Japanese critic that DID help clarify some things for me, such as the fact that Shindo was pretty much the only one at that time who would dare paint the noble Samurai in a negative light. I also liked that ghost movies were a staple of the Japanese summer movie season, particularly after this last summer in which not a single horror film was released wide from May to July (unless you count Priest, which was more of an action movie). He also provides some info on the actors and Shindo himself, and seems like a pretty jovial, well-versed guy (he also discusses cat psychology, which was fitting as my beloved Butters was sitting on the couch with me, purring happily). There's also an hour long interview with Shindo himself; I tried watching it but as it was about his whole career including story details I gave up; this is the first of his films that I've seen and didn't feel like having the others spoiled. Plus I just got other stuff to do; I had mixed feelings about the movie, no use sitting around for an hour trying to learn more about it.

I'd love to hear some takes on this one though, perhaps with someone more familiar with 1960s Japanese horror films - is this one of the better ones, in your opinion? Is there a title you think would make a better "entry point" for a n00b like me? And do they all involve cats?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Wicker Tree (2010)

JANUARY 27, 2012

GENRE: CULT, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Of all the movies to get a surprise theatrical release, The Wicker Tree has to be in the top 5. Maybe in the UK it'd be a draw, but a pseudo-sequel to a nearly 40 year old British cult film that is probably best known here for inspiring a crazy Nic Cage movie is hardly the sort of movie that can be expected to bring in a crowd at a time when even first class, A-grade entertainment like The Grey can't even sell out a prime showing on opening night. Even if the movie was good!

Because, sadly, it's not. It's pretty damn bad, in fact. But really, how can anything related to Wicker Man just be "OK" at this point? The original is a terrific low-key movie, combining an intriguing mystery with a "guy gets caught up in an insane cult" plot, and adding songs and other assorted weirdness. It's not something I pull off the shelf too often, but it's the sort of movie I encourage folks to check out when they seek something a little different. And the remake is infamous; obviously everyone has seen the clips of Nic Cage running around in a bear suit and what not, but it's actually kind of nutty from start to finish, and (IMO) a lot better than anyone gives it credit for.

So when the original film's writer/director Robin Hardy said he was making a spiritual successor to Wicker Man, I got excited. However, a lot of false starts got me worried that maybe this "franchise" should be left alone - and I was right. The elements are there for an intriguing movie - a pair of young lovers, one of whom is a Carrie Underwood-ish country sensation prone to spreading the word of God and promoting chastity with her boyfriend, travel to a strange Scottish countryside town in order to "remind" the citizens about the importance of Jesus and angels and all that. Of course, the town has their own religion and plan to use these two for their own purposes. So it's similar to Man, but different enough to be its own thing and theoretically have some fun with the concept. After all, who's to say that one religion is better than the others? And maybe not now, but certainly many people have been killed in the name of Christianity, so you can't even say the Scots are "wrong" because they're into sacrifice - they just haven't caught up with everyone else.

Unfortunately THAT movie doesn't exist. Instead, we just get an endless series of loosely connected scenes in which our heroes do their thing while the townsfolk either humors them or makes shifty eyes in the background. There's no mystery of any sort, and nothing to even build suspense. Hell, there's no indication that we're even in a genre film until the final reel, so you can't even really call this a slow burn. It's just THERE, and when the cult elements finally kick in they're just as indifferently presented as everything else (and the film's most vicious act occurs off-screen to boot). And if you've seen either version of The Wicker Man you should know that happy endings aren't their style, something Hardy doesn't bother to use to his advantage - a more clever filmmaker would have used our expectations against us and done something different. Instead, he SEEMS to be mixing things up, only to randomly turn it back around and do the exact same thing. Yeah, good one.

It almost seems like Hardy had the wrong idea of what people liked about the original film. If the songs, irreverent humor, and nudity were the only things about the original you enjoyed, then you're the ideal audience for Wicker Tree - the film is overloaded with all. There's a subplot about a woman trying to convince her lover to do it 7 times in one night (one scene even has subtitles for some reason - the movie is in English), which never quite has any real bearing on anything (based on the Wikipedia synopsis I suspect this subplot made more sense in the source novel) but offers plenty of actress Honeysuckle Weeks in the nude. There are at least a dozen songs, often coming right after the other, none memorable in any way. And the film is overloaded with attempts at all types of humor; black (an argument breaks out over a missing bowl of human eyes), absurdist (the aforementioned sex scenes, plus a guy who only speaks in lines from "The Raven"), and even pop culture - head villain Graham McTavish actually makes a Simpsons reference at one point.

Hardy also assumes Christopher Lee is essential to the proceedings. While his name certainly adds some interest, his 30 seconds of screentime in the film may eventually be used in the dictionary to provide an example of "extraneous". Out of nowhere, McTavish has a flashback to when he was a kid and was painting a picture of a bridge, which catches Lee's attention. They have a brief conversation and then it cuts back to present day, without any further insight to the character or plot really gained from the excursion. He has a portrait of Lee on the wall - that should have been the extent of his "cameo", instead of this insultingly pointless bit of fan-wankery.

And again, most troubling - it's simply not interesting. Our heroes are bland, boring people played by not very good actors, and the villains barely try to hide the fact that they plan on doing SOMETHING bad to them, so it's basically just a long wait until the night of their sacrifice so we can see if they'll succeed. Worse, the heroes never seem to suspect anything is amiss, which just makes them look like idiots and also keeps the movie from having anything one could consider suspenseful or interesting. One character randomly seems to be trying to help them near the end, but there's no build up to it nor is there any follow-through on the subplot - she just kind of looks worried in a few shots but doesn't really do anything to help. Riveting!

Oh and the digital photography was a mess at times, but why complain about that anymore? No one's listening. 35mm is on its way out because of laziness, and in 20 years everyone will be wondering why "old" movies look so shitty when stored/projected on technology that didn't exist at the time they were made. Good job, everyone. Ironically though, Anchor Bay (or someone) struck prints of this movie, which is awesome. It's a lousy film and only worthy of theatrical release in the sense that ALL "real" movies deserve the treatment, but I like that the "little guy" is actually trying to keep 35mm alive in its own way. I'd rather the damn thing was SHOT that way in the first place, but I'll take what I can get.

Mr. Hardy once said about the 2006 remake: "It was a complete failure. There was nothing enchanting. No fun. They just didn't get it." Interesting, because I could levy this exact same argument about his own "re-imagining". I wouldn't exactly fight someone who claimed that the Cage movie was terrible, but I'd be very curious to hear how they could possibly say this was any better. The one thing you couldn't say about either version was that it was "boring" - this one can barely be described as anything but.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

HMAD Screening: PSYCHO III

We're back! Due to the fact that the Christmas/New Year's holidays fell on the weekend, there was no HMAD screening in December, saving folks from having to hear me pimp Black Xmas (which is what I would show - and yes I mean the remake). But I'm making up for it - February's screening is already booked as well, and I'll announce the title at THIS month's screening, which is Psycho III!

Some of you were probably at last year's Psycho II screening, which, while not typical midnight movie material, was a damn great time and won over a lot of fans. Psycho III, on the other hand, is PERFECT for midnight, as it adds a layer of sleaziness, has a higher body count, and... well, it's 20 minutes shorter. Always a plus, especially for serial dozers like me.

We're still working on guests, but I'll have a TON of DVDs to give away, plus my usual rambling intro and the announcement of next month's screening, which I'm very excited about for reasons I'll explain when I'm up on stage. The screening takes place Saturday, January 28th at 11:59pm, and as always, you can buy your tickets at the door for 8 bucks (cash only!) or online at BrownPaperTickets. The New Beverly is located at 7165 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, 2 blocks west of La Brea. All the info is also on the awesome poster below, which I encourage you to steal and post about on your own sites/blogs/twitters/what have you. Let's pack this joint!

PLEASE, GO ON...

The House On Skull Mountain (1974)

JANUARY 26, 2012

GENRE: CULT, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Thanks to my endless supply of “being nice”, my IMDb page boasts like 10 credits, almost all of which are in different areas. “Producing” an EPK, editing a documentary, doing some titles, even a few acting gigs. With one exception, I wasn’t paid for any of them, which is part of why you don’t see more than 2 credits in any area: I get sick of doing something for free, but will offer my services in a different area just for the experience. Anyway, Ron Honthaner, director of The House On Skull Mountain, has a similar page - couple acting credits, some sound editing, regular editing, production manager/producer on Gunsmoke (which seems to be his claim to fame), etc. So it’s no surprise that this is his sole directing credit – dude seemingly couldn’t pick an area to excel and just kept bouncing around the industry doing whatever the hell he could, I guess. His final credit was an editor on some action flick from the late 80s – not sure if he died or just finally gave up.

But based on Skull Mountain, I don’t think there was any tremendous loss to the horror genre that he never directed another film (though he fared better than screenwriter Mildred Pares, who has not one other credit to her name in any field). The film is dull, and padded with nonsense like two characters who just met going off into the city to look at antique clocks (set to a weepy ballad no less) – but I could forgive that if any of it was the least bit suspenseful. It’s basically one of those 30s/40s horror style movies where a bunch of distant relatives join up at a big ol’ house to hear about their inheritance, and then they start getting knocked off (or just out) one by one by someone who clearly is after a bigger share. Unfortunately, Pares and Honthaner didn’t really bother to take into consideration that those movies were of a different era and many were made under the Hayes Code, which is why they are mostly so damn boring. Thus, their 1974 version is just as weak, but nowhere near as forgivable.

To be fair they do add some new elements; mainly, the fact that this is a lite Blaxploitation effort, and also has heavy voodoo elements. And while that does add some novelty (as does the Georgia setting, though the opening driving scene was clearly Los Angeles), it doesn’t really matter much in the end. Our lone white character is also the hero, vastly reducing its merit in the sub-genre when compared to say, Sugar Hill (another voodoo movie of infinitely more entertainment value), and the voodoo element is comprised mainly of scenes of our villain chanting in odd closeup angles while stabbing voodoo dolls or lighting sticks on fire.

At least, until the final 20 minutes. Our hero suddenly discovers a hidden passageway that leads to a full cult of worshipers, dancing around and sacrificing a woman tied to a pole and all that good stuff. Then we get a blandly choreographed machete fight, which leads to more voodoo (including a minor zombie scene) before our villain gets pushed out of a window. That’s it. There are only two other kills in the movie, neither of them particularly interesting, though one was a minor surprise since the character (The Jeffersons’ Mike Evans) seemed to be set up as more of a hero or at least someone who’d stick around for a while (sort of the Luke/Russ Tamblyn character in the quartet). The other just gets bit by a snake, which is, as you may have guessed, not nearly exciting or even scary enough to justify the lack of anything happening in the rest of the movie. The damn antiquing scene gets more screen time than the horror stuff!

It’s also depressingly simple. We know who our villain is after about 20 minutes, so there’s no element of surprise like in those other movies. At first I figured maybe the guy doing the voodoo was actually trying to PROTECT our heroes from an unseen/unidentified third party, which would have made for a fun little twist, but no, it’s made abundantly clear that he’s the one behind it all. So it’s one of those movies where you spend the entire movie waiting for the other characters to catch up to you, on top of its other faults.

Honthaner also apparently thinks we’re stupid. There’s a cool little bit where he tries to make a skull face out of a mirror, some bottles, and the person’s head (and her angled reflection), which might have been a fun little Easter Egg for those who noticed it – it’s not like it has any bearing on anything, and had he framed it slightly better or just let the shot linger on for a few seconds more I’m sure folks would have seen the illusion. But pretty much as soon as the elements are lined up (it springs from a zoom out shot), he super-imposes an actual skull face over it, before even the most analytical mind could have possibly noticed the gag.

I was talking to my buddy Sam Zimmerman from "Fangoria" right after I watched, because he was interested in seeing it (I think I talked him out of it). He himself had just watched Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, a better movie to be sure but also one where the concept sounded a lot more interesting than the movie itself ended up being. We then discussed how THESE are the films that should be getting remade, not the movies that were perfectly good the first time around. Both have great titles (even if Skull’s is a bit "Three Investigators"-ish), and that seems to be the only thing any of these modern remake goons seem to care about (which is why the Prom Night remake has zero to do with the original’s story/characters in even a passing sense). And they could be fixed cheaply; they didn’t fail because of terrible special FX or fake looking sets or whatever – they just needed better scripts. Plenty of hungry writers around town – let’s do this!

Or just try to come up with new ideas. Either or.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hands Of The Ripper (1971)

JANUARY 25, 2012

GENRE: POSSESSION, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Regardless of how I feel about each title, one thing I can say about all of the Hammer films that I’ve seen is that they’re not particularly sad in any way. I mean, sure, every now and then someone you like dies, but they never build toward what I’d call a tragic ending the way that Hands Of The Ripper does. I won’t spoil it, but I was surprised to get genuinely bummed out by its events, and thus it elevated the film from good to borderline great.

The cool thing about the movie is that it’s a Jack The Ripper story without Jack. Our heroine is actually the daughter of the killer, and the movie takes place about 15-20 years after his reign of terror. Due to a childhood incident with him that we see in the opening sequence, as well as a séance scene (I think?), the now grown daughter becomes possessed anytime someone flashes a reflected light in her eyes, taking on Jack’s MO and killing the “flasher”. The séance part I wasn’t sure about; it seemed like the lady running it was a phony, but something must have happened to set all this off, right? Otherwise we’d have to believe that no one ever flashed a light at her until now, and then it happens pretty much every day – otherwise she’d have killed more folks than her dad by now, right? I should note that there’s another thing that sets her off, but it’s presented as a sort of surprise – however, it’s equally if not more common an act she might encounter.

See, my problem with most Jack movies is that they get bogged down in trying to make their theory work, which is silly because (uh, spoiler) in real life he was never caught, so no matter what they come up with, it’s still just a movie – one that lacked an element of surprise because of the other problem with most Jack films. That would be the fact that many focus on possible suspects and cops, and never the victims. Every now and then some hooker we’ve never seen or heard of before is killed, with scenes built around typical cat and mouse ideas that are worthless – we know their fate already! But here, dealing entirely with fiction, they are free to create characters we care about a bit – the protagonist’s maid, the girl’s adopted mother, etc. So it becomes a bit of a mix between character study and something closer to slasher than typical serial killer tale. And as a bonus, by drawing on a famous tale (there’s even a hooker victim!), we’re sort of grounded in this world without the need for too much setup – it’s almost like a sequel in some respects. The kills start pretty early and we get 5-6 of them in the 85 minute movie: not too shabby at all.

It’s also well-acted across the board. Eric Porter (who reminds me a bit of pre-douche Kevin Spacey) is terrific as the conflicted Dr. Pritchard, who seeks to learn what causes someone to kill, which is why he takes an interest and then protects Anna once he sees that she is behind one of the recent murders (and understands that it’s not her fault). But he’s also a widower who dresses her up in his wife’s old clothes and lets her stay in his wife’s old room, so it’s got a bit of a sad, pseudo-psycho thing going on too – is he trying to help this girl, or replace his wife? I also enjoyed Keith Bell’s turn as Pritchard’s son, who is about to be married to a blind girl (something Pritchard seems to be opposed to), mainly because his makeup and hairstyle made him look like Edgar Allan Poe.

Angharad Rees is also quite good (and equally fetching) as Anna, who pulls off the tough act of being the film’s killer but also its sympathetic center. It’s a shame she didn’t make more features; most of her work seemed to be in TV and her last credit was in 1998 when she was still in her 40s! Retired too young if you ask me, unless she just wasn’t into acting, in which case I hope she’s well. She also gets to have the most fun in the movie – the kills are surprisingly graphic. Needles in the eye, a woman gets impaled and hung on a door… and the makeup is pretty decent as well. There’s also a terrific bit where a character uses a doorknob to “hook” the handle of a sword in order to pull it out after they’ve been stabbed – awesome!

Plus it delivers the usual Hammer style: colorful cinematography, excellent period recreation, lots of terrific mustaches… in some ways it’s one of the more unique Hammer films (female “villain”, the aforementioned tragic tone, etc), but it feels very much in line with their more famous titles, i.e. the Draculas and Frankensteins. In fact, a subplot about Pritchard blackmailing a guy to help him with his experiment is right out of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and the director is Peter Sasdy, who also helmed a couple of the Dracula sequels. And that’s probably why I dug it so much – it was a perfect blend of what I’d expect from a Hammer title, and what I DON’T.

Also: no Heather Graham. Important to any movie, really, but particularly beneficial to the ones about Jack The Ripper.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Eternal Evil Of Asia (1995)

JANUARY 24, 2012

GENRE: ASIAN, REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

According to Grindhouse programmer Brian Quinn, The Eternal Evil Of Asia (Hong Kong: Nan yang shi da xie shu) was programmed second so I could make it to the New Beverly in time (after work) to count it for my HMAD. I don’t like to think I influence anyone’s decisions in any meaningful way about anything, but even if just a ruse to get me to come it was nice to hear. And it worked! I coffeed up and put off satisfying my Skyrim fix until after the movie (which resulted in me staying up until 4 am). Everybody wins.

Luckily the movie was worth the efforts; like most of the Hong Kong horror films he programs every other month or so, it’s a wonderfully batshit multi-genre effort that shifts gears and tone so often you might suspect that a few scenes were missing that would explain how it went from almost charmingly sweet to totally sleazy in between scenes. Eternal Evil is actually a rape-revenge film of sorts, but with an unabashedly silly approach that prompted my buddy Dan to remark that the film was the first to have a “slapstick rape” scene. Spoilers ahead!!!

Now, obviously this might strike many as insanely offensive, and I do not argue. While we usually laugh at the rampant misogyny, casual murders, and other “taboo” things that these films usually feature, the rape stuff is a bit out of place. Luckily they do as much as they can to “soften” the act – for starters, the rapist and his victim aren’t even in the same room. Our villain is a wizard who has suddenly taken a liking to the girlfriend of one of his intended victims, and the climax of the film is just him standing in a small room, completely naked and thrusting away, using his magic powers to “ghost rape” the girl who is miles away, hanging on a chandelier. Every now and then they use a CGI outline to show the ghost (it kind of looks like “Not Me” or “Ida Know” from "The Family Circus"), but most of the time the act is completely mimed (somewhat impressively so, to give the actors a weird compliment). Also, the girl is kind of allowing it, because the secret to stopping him lies in the moment of his orgasm, so once he lets it fly (again, he’s just thrusting at nothing!) she is able to overpower him. So that’s good. Still – weird way to end your otherwise “fun” horror comedy (there’s also a shorter, more “traditional” rape scene that is thankfully brief and mostly incoherent). I should note that this was part of a group of "Category III" films, which is their version of X-Rated, so they had to have SOMETHING to justify the restricted rating, but the goofy tone of the film was more like a PG-13 thing, which is what made it so awkward.

Another criticism I could direct at it is probably a waste of time, because it assumes that they care about theme or full circle storytelling or anything, but whatever. As we learn in a lengthy flashback, the reason this wizard is killing our protagonists one by one is because they “killed” his sister. However this is not really the case – what happened was, he prepared a love potion to make one of the guys fall in love with her, because that’s the sort of thing that wizards do for their little sisters. Unfortunately the spell is received not by her would-be lover but by his three pals. So they all fall in love with her at the same time, and (per the spell’s “rules”) she falls for them equally, and thus they engage in a fairly routine fourway where she doesn’t seem to be too upset about the whole thing. It’s only when the spell wears off that she gets freaked out, and when they try to explain, she accidentally falls and dies. Thus, it’s really HIS fault that all this shit happened (and hers, for requesting it in the first place), but this never really dawns on him. A better script would find a way to play with his misguided, unnecessary “revenge”. But instead we just get, well, “slapstick rape”.

Otherwise it’s pretty cool. I just spoiled the hell out of it but I like that they kept the back-story to themselves for a while, making it a bit of a mystery for a while. And the kills are wonderfully gonzo – the movie starts with one guy thinking everyone he sees is a zombie and ends up slaughtering his family/neighbors before falling to his death. I know that doesn’t SOUND particularly funny, but it’s shot in a very early Raimi/Jackson-esque way (weirdly angled close-ups, zooms, etc), with lots of splatter and a charmingly sarcastic little kid tossed into the mix. The scene also keeps trashing Cup O’Noodles for some reason, which is just amusing. Then there’s a great “cannibal” bit and other assorted silliness.

The best, however, has to be the scene somewhere in the middle of the movie where a guy makes a particularly common insult and is then cursed by taking on the shape of this particular insult. I won’t spoil it, but it’s nothing short of amazing, and it even builds – a sight gag on top of the sight gag. It’s actually one of several instances in the movie where you will be subjected to the writer’s fascination with the private areas of males and females – we’re given a lengthy discussion on the best way to fondle a scrotum, a girl questions if a vampire would use her used tampons to make tea (WTF?), and not all of the ghost sex is non-consensual – our hero gets ghost head during one scene set to an awesome/cheesy sax riff.

Plus it has the always fun translation errors, including one that literally changed the point of what was being said when they changed a “can’t” to a “can” (I forget the exact context). However the best was during the aforementioned guy who fell to his death. Our hero calls his girlfriend and breaks the news to her, and after a few somewhat amusingly confused lines, he busts out this classic: “His body was stabbed to death by 7 fluorescent lamps.” The movie also begins with a mostly useless prologue where they explain ghosts/enchanting (which gets explained over and over during the movie), featuring a little ghost kid watching a movie while the narrator tells us “Don’t offend him or take him to toilet”. And if reading subtitles aren’t your thing, you can always enjoy the awesome, geek-friendly mid-90s movie posters on display in the heroine’s beauty salon – Die Hard 3, Pulp Fiction, and… er, A Walk In The Clouds.

Mostly what I was impressed with was that it went on very few tangents. If you think of the movie as being about the rise and fall of a well-meaning wizard (like Anakin in the prequel trilogy!), everything is more or less related to that. Even the sillier bits like the heroine being teased by her friend about not knowing how to give a good hand job sort of fits in, given how she has to use her body to defeat the guy at the end. Most of these Hong Kong movies discard plot threads and start new ones throughout the entire runtime, so that they’re not even recognizable as the same film by the time they finish, so I have to give this one props for at least telling an easily summarized story. Had they reigned in the rapey-ness of the third act it would probably be my favorite of the bunch.

Luckily, for once you can judge for yourself; while most of these movies are so obscure that they don’t even have basics like “cast” listed on their IMDb page, this one is actually available on Netflix Instant! And it’s got the same subtitles that we had, so you can enjoy all of the same crazy errors, with the added bonus of rewinding to make sure you actually read it right. Of course, watching in this manner won’t be nearly as enjoyable as seeing it with a good crowd, but at least you’ll know for sure I’m not making the movie up (something I could probably get away with at this point).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

A Darker Reality (2008)

JANUARY 23, 2012

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Whatever the complete opposite of surprised is, that’s what I was when I discovered that A Darker Reality had been sitting on the shelf for a while. An ugly, dull, poorly constructed film that more than once reminded me of gems like Chain Letter and Curse Of The Zodiac, I only wonder why they ever bothered releasing it at all, now? Even at the time it was produced (in 2008) the torture genre was bottoming out, and none of the actors involved have made it big since – who at Phase 4 thought the time was finally right for this junk?

If there was anything remotely worth appreciating about this thing (besides a few decent practical FX), it’s that they split the time evenly between the killer (Daniel Baldwin), his would-be victims (a bunch of annoying girls, many of whom are possibly not actually actresses!), and the cops tasked with finding him. This of course makes the movie more of a mess, but since everyone is either an idiot or hateful, that means the viewer is never stuck with one of them for too long at a time. Suffer through a few minutes of the victims shrieking and telling each other to shut up, and you’re rewarded with the most laughably inept police investigation subplot in movie history!

Let’s talk about them. Despite a victim toll nearing 100, it seems only two cops are assigned to this case: a Michael Biehn-ish detective and a mega-hot forensic psychologist who almost exclusively wears workout clothes. Her character also only works from home, a silly character trait that I suspect was added to allow them to film all of her scenes quickly (the only other place we see her is at the hospital). Their investigation amounts to little more than going through files and talking to either an escaped victim of “The Ghost” and a guy that’s in jail for killing some children, and yet they’re able to determine his location (“Pico and Olympic” – a non-existent intersection, for the record) fairly quickly. You’d think a guy who killed even a tenth as many people would have been caught by now if this was all it took.

The movie also swipes from Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Saw… all movies you’d rather be watching, of course. Baldwin’s voice is sadly almost indistinguishable from his brother Alec, so his attempts at sounding scary (read: swearing a lot) just remind me of when ol’ Al left voicemails for his daughter calling her a selfish little pig. And when one of your sadistic serial killer’s first big scenes is of him getting off via auto-erotic asphyxiation, it’s a bit hard to take him seriously, let alone be scared of him. I just kept wondering if the ghost of Keith Carradine would appear and warn him to stop. So when the movie isn’t ripping off better movies it’s merely reminding me of a variety of TMZ articles, basically.

Honestly I’d go on but the movie has already passed out of my memory bank. The only thing I distinctly remember is the awful ending, which is either setting up a sequel or is just the result of this production not having the money to finish it (it’s also ripping off a scene from Eye See You, for the record). Anyway, it’s not worth the effort trying to recall anything else.

The DVD offers a few deleted/extended scenes, mostly character bits with our hero cops. It’s nothing that could have helped the film – knowing more about their characters' back-stories wouldn’t have helped the fact that their investigation seemed less authentic than a few kids playing cops and robbers in their backyard. But that’s it for extras, and thus there is no mention of the fact that this is a pseudo remake of an experimental film from 2006 that is simply called Dark Reality (this was originally called Dark Reality 2). From what I can understand even its own filmmakers hate that one; curious what they have to say here. I PRAY that this is an actual improvement, but I can guarantee I will never bother to find out for sure.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

HMAD's 5th Annual End Of Year Awards!!

JANUARY 24, 2012

GENRE: AWARDS!
SOURCE: ME!

I know, I’m super late with these. I’ve had some real life annoyances to deal with, plus some side jobs (I even got paid for one!), so it’s the sort of “extra” thing that kept getting pushed off and almost forgotten. So I apologize, but believe me – it’ll be worth the wait!

You’ve had enough ado, so I won’t further it: let’s celebrate the Best and Worst of 2011!!

(note – as always, these movies reflect the 365+ films watched/ reviewed for HMAD in the calendar year, NOT when they came out. If you want a more traditional list, head over to Bloody Disgusting.)

BEST MOVIE ABOUT THE PLAGUE: BLACK DEATH
One of the year’s best films, Christopher Smith’s (Severance, Triangle) men on a mission tale about a group of badasses (led by Sean Bean) seeking out a supposed “plague-free” zone was unfortunately given one of Magnolia’s weird “let’s put it On Demand before dumping it in 6 theaters” releases – it’s a gorgeous film that deserved to be seen on the big screen. But on the other hand, I’m happy someone picked it up at all; there’s not much overt horror, and anything that plays on religious fears can cause some trouble. It also has one of the darkest endings to a film in recent memory. Smith continues to impress – let’s get him a mid-level studio feature!

WORST MOVIE ABOUT THE PLAGUE: SEASON OF THE WITCH
There’s a lot of reasons to dislike Season of the Witch – it’s not particularly good, it confines all of its supernatural elements to the final half hour, and Cage is playing it straight for once, instead of “Caging out” and turning this into Medieval Wicker Man. But the worse was that it came out a few weeks before the infinitely more enjoyable Drive Angry, killing what little interest anyone had in Cage at that point. So this thing made nearly 30 million (still not impressive), while Drive Angry didn’t even hit 10. His next film actually more or less went straight to video, for the record. Let’s hope Ghost Rider 2 rejuvenates the public’s interest in one of our most entertainingly ridiculous actors.

BEST USE OF DANIELLE HARRIS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: STAKE LAND
Despite being the biggest genre name in the cast, Ms. Harris doesn’t show up until around the halfway point of Stake Land, and then barely speaks for another 20 minutes. But she’s quite good in the film, well outside of her comfort zone in that she plays an expectant mother AND sings on-screen (something she is terrified of). Also, her genre history pays off in the film’s third act, which goes against what you might expect from the character AND the actress.

WORST USE OF HARRIS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: CHROMESKULL
Can anyone explain what exactly Harris’ character is doing in the middle of a Laid To Rest sequel? She pops up as some sort of higher-up at Chromeskull’s company (you heard me), and is seemingly using ol’ Jesse to jockey for a promotion. Yes, because when you watch a Chromeskull movie, you want to see corporate intrigue. I assume they have more plans for her in future installments, but her scenes here just add to the sequel’s biggest problem – it’s called CHROMESKULL and yet the guy is kept on the sidelines for far too much of the runtime.

MOST IMPROVED SEQUEL: WRONG TURN 4: BLOODY BEGINNINGS
I LOATHED the 3rd Wrong Turn film, and so when I heard the same director (Declan O’Brien) was not only returning to direct but also write it himself, AND that it would be a prequel set in the snow, I figured this was the actual recipe for the worst horror movie of all time. But I guess all those negatives equaled a positive; while still far from the heights of Wrong Turn 2, this one delivered a lot of great (and mostly practical!) kills, a fast pace, and the most wonderfully silly climax in recent memory. Not a good movie by any means, but it hits the sweet spot for this sort of thing.

LEAST IMPROVED SEQUEL: SOMEBODY HELP ME 2
The original Somebody Help Me was the first movie I was given specifically for review on Horror Movie A Day, but I didn’t think too much of it, which is probably why they didn’t send me the sequel. But they made the right call; this is infinitely worse than its predecessor, with repetitious, kill-free plotting, obnoxious direction, and a killer who wears a mask in some scenes even though we know who it is (same guy as the original). Please don’t let there be a third, as threatened.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT JEFFREY DAHMER: DAHMER
Go-to franchise rejuvenator Jeremy Renner got an early break in this independent serial killer biopic (from the same company that gave us Gacy and all those others), and he’s pretty damn great in it. The movie doesn’t provide much context – it’s best viewed by those who are already familiar with the case – but the above average attention to detail and Renner’s performance make up for its low points.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT JEFFREY DAHMER: THE SECRET LIFE
Shot only a year after Dahmer’s arrest, this is like the complete opposite of Renner’s film – they provide a Cliff’s Notes account of the case sans any sort of insight, and tell the story via the lousiest collection of actors ever assembled for one of these things. Add in the constant, obnoxious voiceover and complete lack of detail (so many palm trees in Milwaukee!) and you have a movie that manages to be even crasser than the subject matter demanded.

BEST ASYLUM MOCKBUSTER: WHEN A KILLER CALLS
Not only is this infinitely better than the 2006 remake of When A Stranger Calls, I think it’s actually a bit better than the 1979 original as well (based on memory - haven't seen it since I was like 14, but I didn't like it). Like the remake, it keeps everything based around the first 20 minutes of the original, except here the body count is higher (nothing happened in the remake) and it’s surprisingly grim – not one but two kids are offed by our killer. And it even has a theme song, so I’m automatically in its corner.

WORST ASYLUM MOCKBUSTER: HILLSIDE CANNIBALS
I’m not as crazy about the 2006 Hills Have Eyes remake as many of my peers (it’s good, but the things they changed were for the worse, so just stick w/the original IMO), but it’s the friggin Exorcist compared to this thing, which doesn’t even come close to the very low standards of “OK for Asylum”. A straight up ripoff of the other movie would have been better than this, which kills everyone off in the first 10 minutes and then proceeds to tread water for the next 70. Ugly and boring, it’s the sort of movie everyone probably thinks ALL Asylum movies are like, when in reality it’s only like, half of them.

BEST MOVIE WITH A BAD TITLE: MANSQUITO
The title Mansquito sounds like something that would be made up for a comedic film making fun of 50s horror movies, but it’s a real movie from 2004 – and a pretty fun one at that! Taking cues from The Fly, we follow a slowly turning female victim, giving us the human drama that a good horror movie needs and often ignores. But, there’s also a fully formed Mansquito that goes around killing folks, so we still get a lot of monster action – it’s the best of both worlds! And then of course they fight at the end, which is always awesome. A shame more Syfy movies don’t follow this one’s lead.

WORST MOVIE WITH A GOOD TITLE: SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS
Now, this isn’t a BAD movie, but that title is so damn creepy and weird; at the time I referred to it as “The Giallo-est title ever”. But they use it on a rather slow-paced, barely horror movie about a guy investigating his girlfriend’s disappearance. There isn’t even a killer per se, a couple of folks die but by different hands, and until the 3rd act it’s just pretty damn boring, honestly. And the title has almost nothing to do with the plot, making its misuse even more annoying.

BEST BATSHIT MOTIVE: CONTAMINATION .7
We’ve heard of nature strikes back movies like Long Weekend or Frogs, but this one goes the extra mile, with killer trees specifically going after loggers and such, seeking revenge against them for harming their habitat. By the time a cut down Christmas tree goes after someone in their own home, you can be assured that you are watching a truly inspired film.

WORST BATSHIT MOTIVE: BEAR
Since they used a real bear and no CGI, Bear could have been a decent survival thriller about folks fending off an angry bear if not for its jaw-droppingly awful script, topped off with a “twist” at the end in which we discover that the bear actually wants these people to atone for their sins (embezzling, infidelity, etc). And it’s played straight, as if anyone in the audience might go “Ohhhh… yeah, I GET it, man.” It’s almost worth watching just to see how straight they play this inanity, but the hateful, idiotic characters and repetitive, poorly edited action make that a hard sell.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT A RAPIST LANDLORD: SLEEP TIGHT
I couldn’t make any of the screenings of Sleep Tight (Spanish: Mientras Duermes) at Fantastic Fest, and had to opt for a screener viewing on my computer instead of one of the greatest movie theaters in the world, but in a way that helps clarify just how well this creepy thriller works. An ugly transfer on a relatively tiny screen couldn’t diminish the impact of Jaume Balagueró’s best solo effort yet, and I can’t wait to see it again – hopefully with a crowd, so I can amuse myself by watching them squirm as the plot unfolds.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT A RAPIST LANDLORD: THE RESIDENT
Even in the glory years of Hammer they produced some clunkers, but nothing was ever as bad as The Resident, a woefully stupid account of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s disturbed landlord going to extreme measures to bang Hilary Swank, even though she seems into him. Featuring cinema’s all time most idiotic “let’s show you stuff from earlier in the movie now that it has a different context” montage, nonsensical character actions, and the total waste of Christopher Lee (he was treated better in the theatrical cut of Return of the King), this is NOT the sort of thing Hammer should be putting their name on as they try to get back into the horror game after a lengthy absence.

MOST TERRIFYING USE OF SPORTING EQUIPMENT: FINAL DESTINATION 5
Even detractors of the series often admit that the kills in the Final Destination movies are creative and enjoyably insane, and given that this is the FIFTH in the series, it’s sort of impressive that they can still come up with new ones. Even more impressive that it would have one of the series’ best – a typically Rube Goldberg-ian sequence centered around a gymnasts’ balancing beam that produces the most mangled corpse ever. There should be a Sniglet for my resulting mix of a laugh and a horrified groan.

LEAST TERRIFIYING USE OF SPORTING EQUIPMENT: STORMHOUSE
The climax of this already obnoxiously bad movie came down to a haunted fucking basketball bouncing around HARD in an attempt to make it scarier. Note – this was not played for laughs.

BEST NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD MOVIE: NOTLD 1990
Back in February I inexplicably decided to watch nothing but Night of the Living Dead related movies for the week (except for Rubber, which was a press screening that they refused to change for my sake), and most of them weren’t worth the effort. But Tom Savini’s remake (which I had seen as a kid) holds up fairly well – it’s not as tense or scary as the original, but it gets more right than wrong. And crucify me all you want – I prefer his ending to Romero’s (which is also his - George wrote the remake’s script, not Savini). And any movie that features an immolated Bill Butler can’t be too bad.

WORST NOTLD MOVIE: NOTLD 30th ANNIVERSARY
I bought this thing back when it came out in 1998, only to hear how bad it was before I ever got a chance to watch it. Thus, I vowed to hang onto it and thus keep anyone else from being exposed to it (the DVD is a limited release). However when I got this “Week of NOTLD” idea I realized the time had come to see for myself if it was really as bad as I heard. So I was surprised to see they were wrong – it was FAR WORSE than anyone had ever led me to believe. I’d comfortably call it one of the five worst movies ever made, in fact; the insanely misguided decisions that John Russo and the others (not Romero) made go beyond awful, where it’s not even funny to watch in the “Plan 9” way. When Russo croaks I hope they bury every copy of this piece of shit with him.

BEST ATTEMPT AT MAKING A JOHN CARPENTER MOVIE: ATTACK THE BLOCK
Joe Cornish’s debut succeeds in pretty much every area one could want from a film: it’s funny, it’s scary, it’s got terrific, crowd-pleasing action, and it moves like gangbusters – if there’s a dull moment in the film no one can remember it. And it’s knowingly inspired by no less a great than John Carpenter; the opening shot of the alien ship is a direct homage to The Thing, and the confined setting is right out of several of JC’s flicks. Plus, the protagonists are enemies on opposite sides of the law who are forced to team up to defeat their common enemy; which is straight up Assault On Precinct 13 (or, fine, Ghosts of Mars). One of my favorite movie-going experiences of the year – and the only film I paid to see a 2nd time.

WORST ATTEMPT AT MAKING A CARPENTER MOVIE: THE THING
For years fans have been scoffing – yet mildly intrigued – by the idea of a Thing prequel, showing what happened to the Norwegians even though we know that they’re all dead. However, constant attempts to make their film fit into Carpenter’s story (“SEE how the axe got into the door! LEARN the name of the guy who slit his wrist and froze!”) just make all of their missteps all the more obvious. The bad CGI is the most offensive, but I was more troubled by the lack of a single interesting or fun character. I’d pay handsomely for a Childs or Blair action figure; I couldn’t even tell you the names of any of the characters here. They should have just abandoned the prequel idea and made it a remake (which they sort of did, actually) – at least then we wouldn’t have to accept this Thing as part of the canon.

BEST INCOHERENT MOVIE FROM 1989: THINGS
Every even numbered minute of this movie will make you laugh or smile, every odd numbered one will make you shout “WHAT?”. Spider sandwiches, bizarre dubbing, a newscaster who seems to be reporting on plot developments that haven’t occurred yet… it’s just pure, insane bliss.

WORST INCOHERENT MOVIE FROM 1989: THE BLACK CAT
Most Italian horror movies don’t make a lot of sense, but even by their standards The Black Cat is a total mess. “Luckily” if you can’t follow a particular plot thread, it will probably get dropped and never mentioned again, since that’s what happens to most of them – it starts off as one of those “movies about movies” but ends with some sort of wizard battle involving planets. And I know that sounds kind of awesome, but it’s actually crushingly dull and shockingly low on gore/kills, which is probably why it remains relatively obscure despite some weird attempts to fit it into Argento’s Three Mothers series. P.S. not to be confused with Fulci’s 1981 Black Cat!

BEST MOVIE ABOUT SOLDIERS GOING NUTS: DEATHWATCH
I’ve heard about Deathwatch here and there over the years, and it’s been recommended by more than one reader – not sure what took me so long to get around to it. But it was worth the wait, upsetting and scary, with terrific performances by a mostly unknown (for 2002) cast, it’s the sort of movie that keeps me doing HMAD. Without the need to watch something every day, gems like this would continue to pass me by.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT SOLDIERS GOING NUTS: THE SQUAD
Hearing so many great things about Fantastic Fest over the years, I was under the assumption that no bad/generic movies squeaked through, but The Squad was obnoxiously starved for creativity, not to mention even basic scares or suspense. The only time I actually dozed off the entire time I was at the festival (regular readers should understand how much that means under normal circumstances – I was barely sleeping there!), and it wasn’t worth fighting to stay awake for the rest.

BEST HORROR MOVIE A DAY NEWS: MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
For a while it looked like the Horror Movie A Day screening series at the New Beverly would come to an end due to some personnel issues at the theater, but as of April they have been resumed and even more frequent! And we’ve shown lots of great stuff, including Psycho II (with Dean Cundey in the house for Q&A!), From Dusk Till Dawn, Drag Me To Hell, and a sparsely attended but still glorious showing of The Descent, which is my favorite horror film of the decade. To everyone that has come to one or all of them – you are forever in my cool book. See you in 2012!

WORST HORROR MOVIE A DAY NEWS: NO MORE “EXTRAS”
Due to some staff cutbacks at my real job, I had to take on more work responsibilities. As a result, a lot of the extra stuff I liked to do – commentaries, “October Extras”, non-canon reviews, etc – had to be greatly reduced or eliminated entirely. I also wrote fewer full reviews for festivals I attended - there just wasn’t time for them anymore alongside everything else, because the time I used to spend doing extra stuff at work was now spent doing work (assholes!). It’s a bummer; I enjoyed giving you guys a little more than just the daily review (within reason; I never want to post “news” or interviews here), but alas, I just can’t do it anymore. I mean, look how long it took to get this up!

Of course, next month marks the amazing FIVE YEAR anniversary of Horror Movie A Day, and thus along with it the five year anniversary of daily horror watching (February 16th, 2007 remains the only missed day), so that’s pretty awesome. We’ll also hit some milestones within the genres (200th monster movie! 100th Italian horror movie!) and hopefully provide the same amount (if not more) of festival coverage – as always, money dictates those things so be sure to do all of your Amazon shopping HERE, or just hand me 100 dollars cash if you see me out and about! I also accept baked goods.

And of course, thanks for reading! Without you I’d be talking to myself even more than usual!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Tenant (2010)

JANUARY 22, 2012

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

As previously mentioned, I hate repeating myself under any circumstances, but it drives me even more nuts when I have to repeat something that is IN WRITING. However, I do understand that I tweet a lot, and some folks like to follow over a thousand people for whatever reason to boot, so when I tweet something about the movie I said I was watching 2 posts ago and someone goes “What movie are you talking about?” I have to accept that maybe it’s too much of a hassle for them to investigate. So it’s kind of ironic that I actually DID put the name of The Tenant into my brief reaction, because then of course someone assumed I was talking about the Polanski one. Thus, had I not bothered trying to clarify, maybe I wouldn’t have had to clarify.

But the weird thing is, my post was pretty specific to this movie – it’s not like I said “The Tenant was kind of lame, but I’ve seen worse” or something; I specifically addressed the movie’s odd structure (Polanski’s film is fairly straight-forward) and admirably crass handling of its deaf characters, something I cannot recall in the other Tenant. So maybe folks can’t even read the whole tweet, I don’t know.

Anyway, the mad scientist and slasher hybrid is pretty rare, so it’s worth noting that the two never really blend into one movie. The first half of the movie is essentially an overlong prologue depicting how the hulking brute slasher in the 2nd half came into existence. There’s very little “horror” in this setup (which is probably why a present day, pre-credits kill scene of no bearing on anything was added); we just watch a well-meaning but obsessed doctor (who looks like Rip Torn) conduct questionable tests on his pregnant wife (as well as Michael Berryman, second-billed for a single scene role). But she’s having twins, so one baby comes out fine while the other is a hideous freak. There’s a lot of stuff about their failing marriage and money issues, plus the Berryman scene goes on forever – it’s basically the most fleshed out, overlong version of the five or ten minute intro that would accompany something like The Burning or whatever: “Once upon a time THIS happened – now let’s get to our slasher story.”

Thus, by the time the slasher plot kicks in around the 45 minute mark or so, there isn’t much time for characterization or suspense-building. All of a sudden we meet a vanful of deaf teens (young ones, like around 14), two older (college-age) counselors, their boss who looks a LOT like the mother in the first half (hmm…) and J LaRose as the hilariously crass van driver, an ex-con who repeatedly refers to the kids as “dummies” and has negative things to say about pretty much anything. Where they were going in the middle of the night in a huge rainstorm is none of our business, but the movie wastes no further time getting them into the now abandoned asylum where the now adult mutant boy is prowling around.

In a way it’s kind of remarkable how many clichés they run through in order to get to the point quickly: their tire blows out AND they’re out of gas, which is why they don’t just sit in the van to wait (it’s cold). Then they run through the “no signal” scene with their cell phones, with the exception of one that has a signal long enough to call a phone that was dropped in the rain, and then it promptly dies from a low battery. The only thing they forgot was getting lost, but I guess that would make the rather silly coincidence of the connection our heroine has to the asylum that they broke down in front of even stupider. On the contrary, she actually knows quite a bit about it, yet doesn’t piece together the connection until she finds some photos and files.

But, you know, whatever. I don’t ask for tight, surprising plotting from these things, and I was already kind of amused by the fact that they spent so much time explaining the killer’s origin. Once LaRose showed up and started spewing venomous insults at kids who couldn’t even hear him it entered See No Evil/Silent Night, Deadly Night territory, so you know I’m on board with that. Plus, the kids get killed! I figured MAYBE one of them would be offed to raise the stakes, but they’re only there for about five minutes before our killer pulls two of them through a wall and kills the shit out of them. In fact, to give it an actual (not backhanded) compliment, they do a fine job of killing the folks you figured would be OK and vice versa (with the exception of the heroine, obviously). Of course, part of that is due to the fact that we barely learn any of their names (the whole “deaf” angle has no real point other than I guess to explain why most of them don’t have phones), but there are still some surprises with regards to the more “fleshed out” characters, i.e. the ones we can tell apart.

I’m less forgiving of the terribly directed/edited action scenes, however. That scene I mentioned where he pulls the girls through the wall? The heroes just look at the hole and then briskly walk into another room saying things like “We have to find them!”, as if there WASN’T a man sized hole in the wall that clearly led to where the girls might be, assuming they were still alive after they just wasted time walking in the wrong direction. There are a number of scenes where people seem to have no reaction to what is going on around them, as if the actors weren’t aware they were in the frame, and one character is CLEARLY dead at one point only to be alive and kicking a few minutes later.

But that just adds to my theory that the film was produced at two different times, as none of the actors in the mad scientist scenes ever interact with the ones in the slasher segment. Whether they didn’t have enough for one segment and decided to add the other, or they just simply didn’t know what they were doing, I don’t know – but the movie definitely suffers from a disconnect, both in the two-part structure and within those segments. The mad scientist parts are kind of sloppy too; the other patients in the asylum look to be more important at one point, only to be forgotten a few moments later. There’s a deleted scene on the DVD that I cannot for the life of me understand how it would have ever fit into the movie, and it’s interesting that all of them are from the movie’s first half. Was the slasher stuff a total “oh shit the movie’s too short let’s come up with something else!” affair?

Nothing on the making of suggests as much, as the director talks about the actors for a bit before they spend an inordinate time on sound editing, including the “reveal” that all of the dialogue in the “van in the rain” scene was looped, something I had written in my notes (“ADR?”) as I watched the movie. Nice try though. There’s also a blooper reel, but as is common with these low-budget horror movies, most of the bloopers aren’t distinguishable in any way – no obvious flubbed lines or even a boom mic dropping into the frame. But if The Tenant is your favorite movie ever you’ll probably enjoy spending a few more minutes with these beloved characters.

With some polish and a slightly less awkward structure, this could have been a minor gem. I appreciate the humanizing of the monster (to a degree), and utilizing practical FX will always earn my respect, but it never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the tone/point of the first half doesn’t quite fit with that of the second. Nice, weird try.

What say you?

P.S. Enough with “Moonlight Sonata”! Thing’s getting more play than “Mockingbird” in horror movies as of late. Give Beethoven a break, huh? Try some Ives.

PLEASE, GO ON...